Learning Methods and Their Efficiency in Agricultural Organisations in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Education and employee development are among the most important areas where employers can look for new efficient ways and methods for gaining a competitive advantage in the form of employee knowledge. Systematic education increases the potential of the workforce which has a positive impact on all organisation processes in all sectors, including agriculture. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the deployment of educational methods in Czech agricultural organisations and to assess their efficiency within the educational process. The data was obtained through a quantitative survey, specifically a questionnaire, among selected agricultural organisations operating in the Czech Republic (n = 70). The evaluation involved independence tests (the χ2 test) and multi-dimensional statistics (factor analysis). The results showed that most of the surveyed agricultural organisations have implemented an educational process in order to develop competencies among their staff. Among the surveyed organisations, the results have identified 4 organisational approaches to the use of educational methods (0.404 – 0.860) and two ways how to evaluate their efficiency in the educational process (0.519 – 0.889). Testing has proven a correlation between whether an agricultural organisation develops education systematically, plans educational activities for a pre-defined period and evaluates the efficiency of educational activities using selected identification variables.

Keywords

• agriculture
• educational program
• knowledge sharing
• learning methods
• the Czech Republic